


Happy Anniversaries

by RedChucks



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: M/M, Ridiculous happy ending, and sex obviously, fluff and nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 06:56:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14183406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: Dan has come a long way, with Jones' help until he has actually reached a point of happiness.Truly, I have no real excuse, I just wanted to write a dopey happy ending and sexy times, because I haven't done that in a while.





	Happy Anniversaries

Four years. It has been four years, to the day, and Dan feels irredeemably pleased that he didn’t let his crippling self doubt and ever-present self hatred hold him back from grabbing what he wanted by the balls for once and running with it. Not that there has been any actual ball grabbing. Plenty of nuzzling, licking, sucking, and... other things.. he blushes in the silence of the sleeping room. There has definitely been plenty of ball related action over the last four years, not to mention the dozen or so years before that, but nothing so rough as grabbing. And there has definitely been no running. Something that Dan still considers a miracle.

  
He looks down at the man sleeping next to him, his limbs sprawled out on their large, messy, marriage bed; the man he’d barely known all those years ago when he’d offered Dan a place to stay and a place to hide from the idiots on the rise. Now, he muses, shaking the curls from his eyes to better take in the man’s beauty, he knows Jones better than he probably knows himself.  
He reaches across to let his hand slide over the pale skin of Jones’ bare torso, the note book falling from its perch on his knees as he turns to better appreciate the man who chose to fall down the rabbit hole with him so willingly and with such strength and enthusiasm and humour. He’s so beautiful, and Dan still can’t quite believe his luck. He feels old sometimes, especially when his leg aches in the cold and he looks in the mirror and discovers yet another silver hair, not to mention the fact that he’s managed to fall victim to a bit of middle aged spread but Jones is still somehow slim and youthful. Dan can still feel his ribs as he runs his hand over Jones’ chest, but he has filled out a little over the years and there is a broadness to his shoulders that wasn’t there back when he’d bounced up to Dan at a rave that was ten years too late to be cool and asked him if he wanted to fuck or possibly run away together and get married on an island where nobody knew their names or past. It still makes Dan smile, something he used to do so rarely that it had felt unnatural and unfamiliar. Jones had been overflowing with the most ridiculous whimsy and at the time Dan had ascribed it to the ecstasy, but it had just been part of who he was, and Dan loves that he has never lost his strangeness and way with words.

 

At the time he’d laughed and told the man that it wasn’t possible, they were two blokes, where in the world could they get married? But Jones had just grinned up at him, threading his fingers through Dan’s long and sweat-lank curls as he leaned in to whisper against his lips.

  
“But what if we could? What then?”

  
“Then I’d change my name to yours in a heartbeat,” Dan had told him truthfully, and had happily accepted the stranger’s tongue in his mouth and hands down the front of his jeans. He hadn’t expected it to lead to anything.

  
The next day, after he’d suffered through a horrific come down, he hadn’t wasted another moment’s thought on Jones’ proposal, not for the next ten years. But Jones’ other words: “Are you happy?” had stuck with him, because he hadn’t been able to answer, and the question had hung between them through the years, in the ear-shredding rhythm of Jones’ music and the soft stutters of his breath on Dan’s cheek in the dark, and Dan hadn’t been able to escape those sweet, tantalising words.

“Are you happy? Let me make you happy?”

 

He slides further down in to the bed as Jones stretches beside him, moving like a cat in response to Dan’s hand on his skin, and he pushes his notebooks and pens to the floor, not caring where they fall, not when Jones’ eyelids are fluttering and a smile has eased its way on to his kissable lips.

  
“What time is it?” he asks lazily, without opening his eyes, and Dan presses up against him, letting Jones’ natural warmth spread to him, banishing the worry and doubt and fear as it has done ever since their first night together, when Jones showed him that sex could mean connection and joy and fulfillment rather than simply an awkward and short lived climax.

“Just gone midnight,” Dan tells him, leaning in to press a delicate kiss to the corner of Jones’ mouth. “Happy anniversary.”

Jones opens his eyes and lets his smile widen as he reaches up to tangle his hands in Dan’s hair and hold him in place, so that their noses can touch and Dan can smell the caffeine on the man’s skin and feel the love pouring from him.

“Happy anniversary, Dan,” he whispers. “Ooh, I got presents for you and all.”

Dan grins as he allows Jones to push him on to his back and watches as his husband straddles his hips and yawns like it’s a whole body event. He waits for Jones to get up and fetch whatever weird nick-knack he’s found and decided Dan will appreciate but Jones just sits there, running his hands over Dan’s chest and pressing their hips together in a steady, tantalising rhythm.  
It takes Dan rather too long to realise that this is the present Jones has in mind, or the present he intends to give him right now (Dan is sure there will be others because Jones enjoys giving gifts and celebrating, and celebrating their anniversaries in particular) but when he gets with the program he smiles, not quite believing his luck, as Jones grins back wickedly and gazes at him with heavy lidded eyes.

He tries to lie still as Jones picks up the pace (there were penalties for moving, for begging, for squirming) and Jones looks down at him triumphantly as he presses his erection in to Dan’s before lowering his body down, shivering along with Dan at the contact, at the intensity of it, even after so long together.

At first he’d honestly believed that a steady, hand holding, sweet as advertised, relationship just wouldn’t work for him, and for years he’d only allowed Jones to touch him when one or both of them was drunk or high or caffeinated beyond human capacity. He’d believed the poison Jonnatton Yeah had whispered in his ear, that he needed to be miserable if he was going to write the way he did. He’d believed the voice in his head that told him that if he admitted he was head over heels in love with a fashionable DJ who decorated his decks with dolls and wielded an eye-liner pencil with more skill than he could a pen to sign his name... then he’d cease to be Dan Ashcroft and become one of the Idiots he despised. Another voice, softer, yet snarkier than the others in his head, had suggested that Dan Ashcroft was a dick and that it’d be no big loss if he did cease to exist. Dan had mostly ignored that voice. Right up until he’d found himself lying in a hospital bed, weak and in pain, despite the drugs sludging through his system, wondering why Jones hadn’t been in to visit.

Why would he? The voice had asked him. Why would he visit someone who barely gave him the time of day? Dan Ashcroft’s a dick, the voice told him. Who’d want to be with a guy like him?  
Dan had agreed.

It had taken him years to get to the point where he could stand before Jones, sober and clean and confident enough to say, I love you, and at that time, in that antiseptic, harsh, white place, it was more than he could even contemplate. Dan Ashcroft was a dick, he agreed, but what could he do about it?

 

“I love you,” he gasps in to Jones’ mouth between kisses as Jones continues to rock his hips against Dan’s, sending sparks along his spine to burst in the darkness behind his eyelids. “I love- I love you.”

“I know,” Jones reassures him warmly, “I know, Dan,” and goes back to kissing him with a passion that makes Dan feel like he can’t quite breathe.

Jones’ lips and tongue seem to always know what Dan needs and the way his bottom lip is sucked in to Jones’ mouth whilst short fingernails scratch along his scalp make Dan shiver and a moan escapes his throat as he feels himself being overwhelmed by the presence and force of Jones.

As Jones begins to slide down Dan’s chest, kissing and licking, and occasionally biting, Dan tries not to buck up too violently. His body is ready to explode, and not just from the building need to orgasm, he realises, but because he is so hopelessly in love, and cant help but remember the years of intense joy and pleasure and madness the man above him has brought in to his life. He looks down, feeling laughter bubble forth uncontrollably at the sight of Jones with the waistband of Dan’s boxer shorts between his teeth and lust in his eyes, and lifts his hips carefully in order to allow Jones to strip away the only clothing between them.

“God you’re beautiful,” he sighs as Jones settles between his legs, pushing his thighs wide as he runs his hands over them, spreading Dan and exposing him, causing another shudder to run through him.

“You cold?” Jones asks in return, his brows knitting in concern.

Dan shakes his head, watches the smile return, and feels the memories overwhelm him again, of Jones standing at the end of his bed the day he was discharged.

 

“I bought you a jacket,” he’d said, looking determinedly at Dan’s leg to avoid his eyes. “It’s cold out.”

Dan had nodded, hating the awkward silence but struggling to come up with a response.

“Thanks,” he said lamely. “Might not fit over this thing though.”

He lifted his arm to show off the cast on his wrist, as if Jones could possibly have missed it, but Jones shakes his head and shifts his footing, holding up the jacket that is nearly bigger than he is.

“Nah, I thought of that,” he almost grinned. “This fucker’s the biggest they had and I figured you might appreciate having a cocoon you can hide in when we have to head back out in to the real world.”

Dan nodded again, wondering how Jones seemed to know him so well, wondering what he could do to repay the favour; to learn something about Jones and show it. He felt a strange amount of affection for the man and was suddenly driven to do something about that. He just didn’t know what.

 

Back in the here-and-now Jones is reaching for the lube on the bedside table and has used the movement as an excuse to lean in to kiss him again. Dan lets his hands skim up Jones’ sides, delighting at the softness of such pale skin and the strength he knows lies beneath. Jones hums in to his mouth as his tongue delves deeper, stroking against Dan’s, driving him crazy with desire, just as he always has.

Despite Dan’s assurances that he’s not cold, Jones pulls the blankets up around them both as he nudges Dan on to his side, and Dan lets him do it, would let Jones do just about anything, a fact that Jones treats like it’s sacred, even if he chuckles wickedly in response to Dan’s whine as their lips part.

“S’alright,” he coos gently, kissing along Dan’s shoulder as he moves. “I’m not going anywhere. Just getting you comfy so’s I can make my music.”

Dan nods but he can’t stop the noises and when Jones pressed against him from behind, his hot, slick, cock pressed to the curve or Dan’s arse, the noises only increase, which he knows was Jones’ plan all along. He lets himself get louder when Jones’ fingers join the game, relaxing and pushing in to the movements and rhythm, and thanks every god he doesn’t believe in that he can. Because it wasn’t always like this, but he’s glad that it is now.

 

When he’d arrived home from the hospital Claire had been ready to give him a bollocking, he could see it in her narrowed eyes and flared nostrils, and he’d been ready to use every insecurity he knew she had against her, but Jones had grabbed him by the collar of his over-sized jacket and kissed him fiercely, biting at his lip because he knew it made Dan whine and go weak at the knees, until Dan had felt tamed and Claire’s eyes had turned wide with surprise and comprehension.

 _Mine_ , the kiss had told them both, and neither had dared to challenge Jones’ clear statement of intent. They were Ashcrofts, after all, and too aware of their inability to speak up, not when it mattered, not in any meaningful way. They were both slaves to a world they hated and feared, no matter how the world worshipped them and misunderstood their misanthropy. Dan is mine, Jones had broadcast to them both, in the kiss and with every action he took over the weeks and months that followed, and the Ashcrofts had accepted the change without argument.

Claire hadn’t ever yelled at Dan after he returned from the hospital but she had moved out, and that had hurt Dan more than he’d anticipated. Everything hurt. And for a while he believed that only Jones could make it better.

When he’d asked for wine Jones had provided it. When he’d asked, wordlessly, for comfort Jones had provided it. When he’d begged with every fibre of his being for a way out... Jones stayed by his side and helped him find it. Along the way he’d helped Dan to find the breathing space and safety he’d thought were lost forever. He’d made it a game of sorts. He’d rile Dan up until he was desperate enough to drop to his knees, begging Jones for the privilege of sucking his cock only to be told no, there would be no begging. He’d get drunk and demand to be fucked, and roll on his belly to hide his shame only to be told no, no turning away, no hiding, no squirming away from what makes you happy.

So he’d learned, bit by bit, year by year, to stand and face the world and say what he needed, and to ignore the people and voices that wanted him to stay miserable and broken for their own ends sake. And life, eventually, hurt a little less. One decade faded and another began, new idiots came and went, and Dan became someone he actually didn’t mind knowing. And through it all Jones had been there, building him up, breaking him down when it needed doing, and living a life that Dan felt privileged to be a part of.

 

A moan ripples through him as Jones pushes inside, one small, strong hand under his knee, keeping his thigh up, the other gripping tight to Dan’s chest, arm trapped willingly under him, holding him in an embrace he never wants to break free from. He tries to catch his breath but it’s still just out of reach, skipping further away when Jones presses in deeper and latches his mouth on to Dan’s shoulder, biting and sucking until Dan begins to buck, his body doing the work for both of them, drawing Jones in until they are as tightly joined as it’s possible to be. Even after so much time, even now that Dan has some semblance of autonomy and a sense of control over his life and destiny, Dan can’t deny how good it feels to surrender himself so wholly. It’s something Jones saw in him very early on and it’s a need he’s happily fed.

Dan can feel the heat of his orgasm coiling tightly in his abdomen now, and clutches at the sheets desperately. He wants to beg but there are rules about begging.

“Please,” he whispers all the same, his hips rolling in time with Jones’, shocks of electricity firing through his system with each thrust against his prostate.

Jones chuckles again, and bites down harder for a moment before pulling away to pepper Dan’s shoulders and back with light kisses. He moves his hips back as well, pumping shallowly in to Dan until he can’t contain his whimpers and his fingers ache for how tightly they are wound in the bedding.

“Is that how we ask?” Jones whispers darkly.

“No,” Dan chokes out, trying to open his eyes but unable to see anything but the dim glow of the lamp light and the sheet in front of his face.

“Know what you want, Dan,” Jones tells him. “Ask for what you need. You know how.”

He angles his hips as he says it, until only the head of his cock is inside, and Dan moans as he feels himself stretched, as Jones begins to pull out entirely. No, the voices in his head scream, he doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t want Jones to leave him, not even for a second, and so pushes his own hips back as best he can as he fights his brain for the right words.

“No, I want to come,” he practically sobs. Jones is circling his hips and he can barely think because it feels too good and he can’t let it end, that would be too tragic to even contemplate. “I want you to touch me, oh god, Jones, please touch me. Touch me. Fuck me. Please.”

His moan is more of a shout as Jones thrusts back in to him and the noises continue as Jones pushes his thigh up, urging Dan to hold it up himself so that Jones’ arm can snake through and take hold of Dan’s desperately hard cock.

Dan knows he’ll feel the ache of it later, of being in such a position, his knee up against his chest, while being fucked so thoroughly, and the shouts become something like laughter as Jones brings him ever closer to the edge. He can feel Jones’ smile against his back as surely as he can feel his finger nails scraping along his ribs and the laughter carries on, not because their situation is laughable, not really, but because his body cannot contain the joy and it has to come out somehow or he’s sure he’ll go mad.

“Make me come,” he yells, a demand and desperate plea in the one breath. “God, Jones, make me come!”

Jones obliges, biting down hard on Dan’s neck as his orgasm rushes through him, and sucking to leave a love bite that Dan knows he won’t be able to cover, even if he wanted to. He doesn’t care that the noises coming from his mouth have now turned to mewls and sighs, not when he can feel Jones reaching his own peak deep inside of his still spasming, trembling body.

“God I love the noises you make,” Jones gasps as his fingers clench in Dan’s skin and his body goes stiff. “Best music in the fucking world!”

 

Dan looked at the man sitting at the mixing desk of the dingy sound studio and smiled. It wasn’t much to look at maybe, but to Dan it was a paradise. After TrashBat had imploded and SugarApe has expired, years after he had resorted to jumping out of a window to solve his problems, Dan had found himself unexpectedly free and utterly, utterly terrified. Jones had been keeping him alive, had been keeping him, in so many senses of the word, but he’d refused to tell Dan what he should do with his life in the aftermath of the hell he had inhabited for so long.

He had brought Dan along to the studio though, where he held the dubious job of graveyard disc jockey, spinning tunes and speaking in to the void from two to six a.m. four nights a week, and little by little Dan had discovered that he loved it. Radio was so uncool that soon enough none of Nathan Barley’s old disciples would touch him with a ten-foot selfie stick, and Dan could breathe in the heavy scent of old records and lose himself among the rows and rows of CDs and sound and stillness. Gradually he found himself involved in the planning and running of the program, Jones would even push the mic toward him and ask his opinion on bands and DJs and trends until one day Dan’d done the unthinkable and asked for a job. He’d stood straight and asked clearly - no fidgeting or begging allowed - the voice in his head reminded him, and had walked away with a contract and fortnightly pay packet.

He was finally living the dream. It was a weird, midnight existence, kind of dream but it was still a good one, and he particularly liked the parts when Jones woke him up for work with kisses and teased him in to arguments on air about bands he’d never admit to actually liking. It had been fourteen years since he’d met the strange and intoxicating life force that was Jones and been asked that terrifying question: “Are you happy?”. He finally answer that question with a yes. More than that, he had a question of his own to ask Jones and he hoped, quite desperately that the answer to his question might be yes as well.

 

He barely recognises himself now, lying spread out on the bed with Jones tucked against him, both of them struggling to breathe steadily enough to speak. There is still a voice in his head telling him he doesn’t deserve what he has, that he’s a loser, that his whole life is actually an elaborate prank, that eventually he will ruin it all and Jones will leave, but there’s another voice that tells the first to shut its mouth. It’s the voice that once told him that Dan Ashcroft was a dick. It’s a voice Dan now trusts. In all honesty, Dan Ashcroft, as he’d been in the days of TrashBat, had been a bit of a dick, but together with Jones, they’ve managed to ensure that _that_ Dan Ashcroft no longer exists.

“Happy anniversary,” he mumbles, turning to kiss Jones’ flushed cheek, loving the grin that spreads across his beautiful face at such a simple show of affection.

“Happy anniversary, Mr. Daniel Jones,” comes the reply as his husband rolls up on his side to press a deeper kiss to Dan’s lips. “Here’s to many more years and all that noise. So glad you eventually said yes.”

“But I asked you,” Dan corrects him. Jones just laughs and kisses him again.

“On live radio, yeah, I remember. It was wild!” Jones agrees, his grin so bright Dan thinks it might blind him. “No backing down, no begging. It was brilliant. But I still asked you first. Though we were high as kites at the time so maybe it don’t count,” he shrugs. “I’m just glad we got there in the end, yeah? Cos I love you.”

“I know,” Dan tells him. “Thank you. I love you too.”

They’re cutting it fine by the time they arrive at the studio, but they’ve made it, and Dan knows that’s what counts. He’s made it. He’s not sure exactly where _It_ is, but it’s a place he’s finally happy to be.

Jones is there by his side, to lean on if he needs it, but mostly these days he’s just there to witness that Dan is living and smiling and breathing and finally, soberly, happy.


End file.
